Silk
by alaricnomad
Summary: LucasPeyton. Future fic. The feeling of silk between her fingers, and the memory of how happy they once were haunted her. Almost as much as the ring on his finger. ONESHOT.


**Silk**

By Alaricnomad

She lays naked on the bed in their shared hotel room, not bothering to cover up as she listens to the sound of him starting the shower in the neighboring bathroom. She runs her fingers idly over the silken texture of the sheets smooth and cool against her skin, and though the hotel was the ritzy sort, she knew the building personnel not to be foolishly extravagant enough for the material to be real silk.

She ponders for a moment, and remembers the manager boasting about…something she couldn't quite remember…she thought perhaps Egyptian cotton. Not that it really mattered, just like a thousand beds before it, they never really got much sleep in favor of other activities.

She hears the sound of the city several floors below and she stretches back lazily, closing her eyes to imagine some of the amazing sights she had seen from their cab the day before. Rome, in all its majesty, was stretched out below them, but like all the other exotic places she could hypothetically boast of having been…with him, the biggest tourism she could had to savor was the different unfamiliar ceilings, and perhaps, if they were feeling adventurous, the patterns of the bedspreads beneath their entwining bodies.

She stares at the ceiling, wondering how they have come to this. She is barely twenty-six years old, and for nearly half her life, one man has led her down this path. She remembers a time when they were happier, so long ago in the past but she still recalls the clicking staccato of whirling ceiling fans and the groans of ancient beds in cheap motel rooms they stole away to.

The way the words, "I love you", were always rolling off his tongue, smooth as silk and sweet as honey, the trips down the coast to spend a weekend at the beach or a trip to the mountains, picnics in the park and Saturdays at the amusement park. She remembers the little poems stuck in her mailbox and the roses delivered to her office, the cards always signing in his bold, masculine script, "From Your Secret Admirer."

For he was a secret, he always had been from the very first stolen kiss to the first fumbling toward ecstasy that consisted of the two of them, a janitor's closet, and four years of pent-up passion. Or rather, she was his secret, for the pale outline of his wedding band upon the hand that touched her so intimately was a constant, painful sting, as well as her own perpetually unadorned finger.

She remembered him, broody and shy, confident and sweet, a naïve but learned boy bordering on man whose golden heart warmed her with just a simple smile or joke between close friends. Even in their senior year of high school, his own impending fatherhood had not diminished that light, and still she had been drawn to it like a moth to a flame.

But the years had passed, and his struggles as a part-time mechanic and his pursuits of his passion, studying literature at a local college, were not enough for his newly formed family, or rather, his wife. So, he abandoned that path, and chose another, one that let him to metamorphosing into the man he was today.

He had never wanted to be drawn into the corporate world, he was never characteristic of the greed and the malice and the ambition that surrounded him day after day, and slowly, slowly, it poisoned his gentle heart. He'd climbed up the ladder so quickly with his natural charm and intellect, earning the kind of life he had always wanted to give his family, kept his wife from leaving, made himself secure that his daughter could sleep warm and full at night.

But it broke him inside, smothering his dreams to lead a life he didn't want. Slowly, she lost the boy she had fallen for, replacing by the embittered shell of a man trying his damnest to wash away the stench of sex and guilt from his body.

They weren't sixteen anymore, and it wasn't only his marriage that formed that tangible distance between them.

She heard him rustling around, and then he stepped back out onto the plush carpet of the hotel sweet, his sandy blonde hair neatly combed and his slacks perfectly pressed, knotting up a tie expertly as his gaze landed on her. He frowned, his brow- lined already with years of stress- furrowed from the severity of the expression, though it was a common one for him.

"Why aren't you dressed? They're expecting us in an hour," he snapped, not really paying attention as he paused by the vanity mirror, checking his hair and smoothing out imaginary wrinkles from his shirt, adjusting his collar. If possible, his frown only deepened, as if displeased with the man reflected back at him. She wondered what it was he saw.

"Luke," she whispered softly, her voice gentle but confident.

His eyes met hers through the reflective glass, as he took in the sight of blond curls tumbling around her bare shoulders, the sultry heat of her hazel-green eyes. He swallowed hard, emotion hazy in his mind- not just the lust, but something even deeper, distantly familiar, for it had been months since she had last uttered the nickname.

He watched as she soundlessly rose from the bed, wrapping the sheet around her body as she padded toward him. She stopped behind him, and tentatively touched a hand to his shoulder, slowly smoothing it down his broad back. His eyes never left hers, and he swallowed hard, something inside him giving in like a collapsing dam as he whirling around, his mouth slanting over hers, crushing her tightly against his body so she could feel the hard evidence of his want against her inner thighs.

They collapsed together upon the bed, his hands ripping away the sheets to feverishly run his hands over smooth, porcelain skin like silk beneath his touch, his lips at her throat, his neck, the juncture of her shoulder. She tugged at his tie, tore at his buttons, hastily ripped open the fly to his pants, and suddenly he was inside her, the fervor dying down as they suddenly stopped, neither daring to move, arms holding each other close as the room filled with the sound of their ragged, broken breathing.

He felt the hot wet of tears against the fabric of his shirt, but he was not sure who it was who started first, for it was the salt on both their lips that filled his mouth, the moisture against both their faces as they moved together at an agonizingly slow pace, both their eyes slick and red with tears but unable to understand.

He peppered soft kisses down her neck, whispered rootless apologies into her ear. It was her nails raking down his back, her teeth digging into his shoulder as she came that brought on his own violent completion, despite the gentleness of their lovemaking, a rarity between them, and they lay together in a silent aftermath.

He shed the rest of his clothes, lying beside her against the smooth material of the sheets, and he rolled it between his fingers as she rested against his side. "You don't think this is silk, do you?" he questioned, cocking an eyebrow as he looked at her, causing her to laugh as she caught a hint of the old Lucas in his voice, in the animated expression of his voice.

"No, I don't think it's silk."

He nodded quietly, slipped an arm around her shoulders to pull her even closer. "Peyton?"

"Hmm?" she murmured drowsily.

"I'm sorry."

"For what?"

"All sorts of things," he said cryptically, kissing her forehead as a ghost of a smile played across both their lips at his parroting of the past.

He combed his fingers through her golden ringlets, brushed his lips against her ear. "If I said I love you…"

"…would you hold it against me…?" she finished for him, glancing at him hesitantly, "Would you, Lucas? We're not the same people anymore. Sometime it feels like we're only still like this because you feel like it's some kind of obligation."

He sighed, snorting softly as he placed his hand over her heart, another strange echo of the past. Their nostalgia that day was thick and undeniable. "No, Peyton. The only obligation in my life is walking through the door of that office every day, walking through the door of my own house knowing my wife hardly knows I'm there. Obligation is grinding my teeth and turning my eyes away when I find another man's sock or shirt in the laundry. You…you're that everything I wanted then, now, and always, Peyt. Believe that."

She nodded quietly, kissed him softly, rested her head against his shoulder as she watched the numbers change slowly on the clock. "What about the event?"

"Event be damned. They can do without us for a night."

"Tell me again why I ever agreed to work for you?"

"Maybe it's just my natural charm," he said as he winked at her, making a show of flexing his arms.

She rolled her eyes, unable to help a smile. She looked out the open windowpane, studied the breathtaking city skyline, and a wistfulness blanketed her expression. "Do you ever wish you could go back?"

"Every day. And I'm sorry, Peyton. I've been such an ass to you…"

"It's alright."

"No, it's not okay. I just…I don't know where the hell I went wrong. I've always tried so damn hard, and it never seems to be enough."

She propped herself up on her elbow, tracing her finger down his cheek as she smiled at him. "You've always been enough, Luke. By the way," she glanced once more at the clock, "Don't forget you promised a certain Ms. Scott that you would call her."

"Ah," and a playful twinkle entered his eye, a crooked grin on his lips, "Of course. The women in my life can never do long without me."

"Of course. Eight year olds just lavish in your attention, don't they?"

"This one does." His face clouded, and he took her hand, their fingers tightly enlacing. "Does it bother you? To talk about her?"

"No. Emily's your daughter, Lucas. How could I love you without loving every part of you? Though…" she trailed off, unsure how to put it, how to phrase such a strange longing to an already married man.

"Do you ever think about it?" he asked her, tucking a stray strand of hair behind her ear.

"Yeah," and she smiled shyly, closing her eyes as she did imagine, "I used to have this picture in my mind. A little girl with my curls and your eyes."

"What would you name her?"

"Anna Elizabeth."

"Anna Elizabeth Scott," he said slowly, "It has a nice ring to it."

"Mmm," was all she could say, and her eyes flew open as he pressed something into her palm, her eyes widening as she looked at him, to the box in her hand, and back at him.

Lucas only smiled. "My lawyer has divorce papers waiting for me, and I can have them signed by this time Monday. What do you think? I can't promise it will be easy, but I love you, Peyton, and Emily loves you, and all those future babies I want to give you are going to love you. Will you marry me?"

There was only one answer she could give him.


End file.
